MediaNet Blog

Spotify Sony Deal Confirmed. The terms include windowing, which would allow the label group to keep some tracks and albums from the music streamer’s free tier for up to two weeks.

German Music Publishers Say It’s ‘High Time’ the EU Acted on YouTube. “These online platforms are still not giving creative people reasonable and fair remuneration. This is a grave injustice and cannot be tolerated any longer.”

Amazon Is Now The 3rd Biggest Music Subscription Service. Mark Mulligan of MiDIA Research states, “Amazon can now discard its dark horse guise and be revealed for what it is: one of the top streaming music players.”

Warner Music Group Acquires Songkick Concert Discovery App. The surprise deal, which appears motivated by the startups protracted legal battle with Ticketmaster, includes Songkick’s concert discovery app and web site, but not its ticketing business.

SoundCloud Responds Reports Of Impending Insolvency. Soundcloud CEO Alex Ljung responded to a TechCrunch report claiming the company would be insolvent in 50 days, saying “There are a number of inaccuracies within the TechCrunch article.”

Top Music News Story

Facebook Is Hiring A Legal Music Licensing Boss
According to a freshly-posted job advert, the company is seeking a Legal Director of Music Licensing, based at its HQ in Menlo Park, California. “In this role, you will be responsible for solving cutting-edge licensing issues on a global scale, with an opportunity to help shape the future of music use on Facebook.”

It explains: “This position will partner closely with internal business counterparts in driving licensing negotiations, as well as coordinating with product, engineering, operations, finance and legal teams in support of the company’s evolving music licensing needs.”

Global Recorded Music Industry Reached $16.1bn In 2016. Discussing the numbers, MiDIA’s Mark Mulligan said: “The recorded music industry changed gear in 2016 and revenue looks set to be on an upward trajectory over the next few years.

SoundCloud Launches $4.99-A-Month Fully On-Demand Streaming Product. “SoundCloud Go answers the call from our users who want the ability to take the huge catalog of content found in SoundCloud’s free, ad-supported offering with them anytime, anywhere, without interruptions, at a very affordable price.”

A Look At The 11 Startups Named To TechStar Music’s Inaugural Class. Bas Grasmayer of Music Tech Future takes a brief look at the eleven startups TechStar Music has inducted into their inaugural startup investment class.

Our October 3rd newsletter mistakenly redirects to this page. You can find the entire “Major Record Labels Sue Over Ripping Audio Tracks from YouTube Videos” here.

iHeartMedia Announces Plans for Its Entry Into Paid Streaming

Story of the Week
Just a week after Pandora announced the relaunch of its mid-tier streaming product and rough timing for its forthcoming Spotify competitor, iHeartMedia has announced its own plans for the same, set for launch in January, 2017.

iHeartRadio Plus will be a similar product to Pandora Plus, described by the company as “enhancing the radio listening experience.” iHeartRadio All Access will be the company’s on-demand streaming service, set to compete directly with Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Rhapsody/Napster, Google Play, and forthcoming services from Pandora and Amazon.

It’s all good news for the record business, which saw significant growth this year for the first time in nearly 20 years thanks to the streaming. iHeart’s announcement is part of a “race to the middle” — offering listeners products at $4.99 per month instead of the now-standard $9.99 in order to capture revenue from more casual fans — and the result will likely be increased growth for the recording industry.

Story of the Week

IFPI 2016 Global Music Report: Digital Revenues Surpass Physical for the First Time
The global recorded music business reached an important tipping point in 2015: Digital services now account for 45 percent of recorded music revenue and outstripped physical revenue for the first time, according to numbers released Wednesday by the global trade body IFPI.

The most momentum happened with subscription services. Subscription revenue, excluding revenue from some services’ free tiers, jumped $58.9 million to $2 billion. The number of subscribers grew 66 percent to 68 million. The number of new subscribers, 27 million, was twice the 28-million subscriber gain in 2014 and over three times the growth in 2013.

War of Words: Labels and Trade Groups Target YouTube’s ‘Value Gap.’ Labels define this “value gap” as the difference between what YouTube actually pays and what they believe it should pay. Labels argue that safe harbor “distorts” the market by giving services leverage in negotiations.

SoundCloud and Sony/ATV Announce Licensing Deal in Europe. SoundCloud wants to take its GO paid subscription service global; and a new deal with Sony/ATV, who has had a deal with SoundCloud in the U.S. since the 2014 launch of its monetization efforts, extends the partnership to Europe.

The Launch Of SoundCloud Go Leaves Unanswered Questions. Nicole Daley, speaking about Soundcloud Go, says “although the service has interesting potential, there remain several unanswered questions regarding things like how artists will get paid, or how royalties are being calculated.”

Facebook Tackles ‘Freebooting’ With Rights Manager Tool. The social media giant has launched Rights Manager, an admin tool which is intended to curb the dubious practice where Business Pages and celebs can rip videos from elsewhere, repost the copyrighted content on Facebook and grow their brands while robbing the content creators of views.

CÜR Media Raises $2M To Pay Labels, Launch Streaming Service Aimed At Casual Music Fans. CÜR Media has announced the completion of $2 million in financing led by Intuitive Venture Partners and Katalyst Securities. CÜR Music, currently in public beta, is a streaming music service aimed at more casual music fans with tiers beginning at $1.99 per month after a 14-day free trial.

Story Of The Week

Facebook In Talks with Major Labels for Music Video Trialhttp://bit.ly/1KuxNKF
Music videos are Facebook is looking to pull music video views away from YouTube as it pilots a new video platform. As Variety reported, the ad revenue split would mirror YouTube’s — 45 percent to Facebook, 55 percent to rights holders.

A source with knowledge of the talks told Billboard the social networking giant wants to conduct a test run through the end of this year, with selected music videos — chosen by the labels — being presented in the main news feed of users. Facebook is, of course, trying to siphon ad revenue away from Google by offering content creators its own native option.

Billions of videos are viewed online each day. Using social data gathered from its network, video-based ads on its site could prove more lucrative than YouTube ads. If so, it likely won’t take long before all the major and independent labels are on board.

Other Important Headlines

Apple Music Launches To Great Applause On Its First Day… The music streaming platform impresses with human-curated playlists, the Zane Lowe-headed Beats 1 radio station, and artist social connectivity. Read More

…And Then Is Quickly Judged Unimpressive By Many Pundits – Tech writers and industry alums generally point out Apple Music’s desire to be all things music as a flaw rather than a strength. “Subscription services have to make it braindead simple to discover new music and build or replicate a beloved collection.” Read More

UMG-backed Study Finds Recording Sales Would Be 17x Higher Without Piracy – Even with Apple Music’s launch and the success of music streaming overall, record company revenue is still a fraction of what it once was. The study found that a “Piracy D-Day” would lead to an explosive renewal of record sales if successful. Read More

U.S. Music Streaming Market Worth $2.7 Billion By 2019 – As physical and digital album and track sales are plummeting, the music streaming market is growing by leaps and bounds, reaching revenues of $799.0 million, equivalent to 73% of the market’s overall value. Read More

Prince Removes Music From Most On-Demand Streaming Services, Except TIDAL – Prince, an outspoken anti-streaming advocate, quietly removed his entire catalog from major streaming services, with one notable exception: TIDAL. It isn’t immediately clear why it (or Pandora) still carry his catalog. Read More